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Even though it is illegal for prosecutors in criminal cases to hide evidence favorable to defendants, there is growing concern over widespread misconduct among prosecutors. Misconduct can be so severe as to lead to life imprisonment and death penalty convictions of innocent people within a system that seems set up to reward convictions at any cost and protect prosecutors at any cost.

Huffington Post writer Radley Balko has just published an in-depth look at prosecutorial misconduct called The Untouchables, with a special focus on Louisiana’s justice system. Balko profiles two African American men who were wrongly charged and convicted by prosecutors one of whom went as far as to hide evidence favorable to the defendant. With several Supreme Court decisions protecting prosecutors, few if any have ever been held responsible for wrongfully convicting innocent people.

A Yale Law Journal review of the situation in 2006 went as far as to say, “[a] prosecutor’s violation of the obligation to disclose favorable evidence accounts for more miscarriages of justice than any other type of malpractice, but is rarely sanctioned by courts, and almost never by disciplinary bodies.”

GUEST: Radley Balko, senior writer and investigative reporter for the Huffington Post, where he covers civil liberties and the criminal justice system.

Click here to read Radley Balko’s article.